Factors in the Cycle of Violence:
Gender Rigidity and Emotional Constriction

By David Lisak, Jim Hopper, and Pat Song

Abstract and Excerpt

Presented by Jim Hopper, Ph.D.

This Web page is a way of letting people know about a research study I've done
with my colleagues. The research focuses on two issues:

Rates of child abuse
and perpetration of violence in a sample of male college students, including the
percentage of perpetrators who were abused and the percentage of abused males who
went on to perpetrate.

How the interaction between child abuse
and masculine gender socialization can decrease abused males' capacities for
empathy and increase their likelihood of perpetrating violence against others.

Though I am unable to mail reprints, I hope some of you will find this
interesting enough to make a copy of the published paper at a college or university library:

David Lisak, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston. His research has focused on the sexual and physical abuse of
male children, men who rape but are not arrested or sent to prison, and ways masculine
gender socialization can transform abused boys into violent men.

Jim Hopper, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University
of Massachusetts at Boston. He is Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at the Neuroimaging Center of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Pat Song, M.A., is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston. Her research has focused on how the sexual abuse of males can effect their gender
and sexual identities.

A sample of 595 men were administered self-report assessments of childhood sexual and
physical abuse, perpetration history, gender rigidity and emotional constriction. Including
noncontact forms of sexual abuse, 11% of the men reported sexual abuse alone, 17% reported
physical abuse alone, and 17% reported sexual and physical abuse. Of the 257 men in the
sample who reported some form of childhood abuse, 38% reported some form of perpetration
themselves, either sexual or physical; of the 126 perpetrators, 70% reported having been abused
in childhood. Thus, most perpetrators were abused but most abused men did not perpetrate.
Both sexually and physically abused men who perpetrated manifested significantly more
gender rigidity and emotional constriction than abused nonperpetrators. Men who reported abuse
but did not perpetrate demonstrated significantly less gender rigidity, less homophobia and less
emotional constriction than nonabused men.

"[Several] sources of evidence indicate
that male gender socialization, like childhood abuse, is implicated in the genesis
of interpersonal violence. This evidence also suggests the need for greater
understanding of how the socialization of males' emotional experience, in
interaction with childhood abuse, can increase the likelihood of interpersonal
violence. The study reported here tests several components of an hypothesized
sequence of relationships linking childhood abuse, particular aspects of male
gender socialization, and empathy deficits. . . The sequence depicted in Figure 1
[see paper] is not intended either as an alternative model explaining the
development of interpersonal violence, or as a unitary explanation of the role
of male gender socialization. The sequence is intended to depict how one frequent
consequence of this socialization -- emotional constriction -- can, when combined
with early trauma, result in the kinds of empathy deficits which have been long
associated with interpersonal aggression (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988). As such, this
hypothesized sequence may be embedded within the relationships posited in many of
the models. . . which are currently being developed and tested. . . . The sequence depicted
in Figure 1 proposes a vehicle by which this socialization may, in interaction with the
emotional legacy of abuse, inhibit some men's capacity to respond empathically, and
thereby increase their likelihood of committing aggressive acts. . . .

In a review of the research on gender differences
in emotional development, Brody (1985) noted the consistent finding that boys learn to
"neutralize" the expression of most emotions over the course of development. By early
childhood and then consistently into adulthood, males are found to be less emotionally
expressive than females (Eisenberg, Fabes, Schaller, & Miller, 1989). This "neutralization"
of emotional expression can generate an intense conflict when it interacts with the
experience of abuse. At the nucleus of almost every episode of abuse are intense feelings
of fear and helplessness. Thus, at the precise developmental [stage] when the male child
is learning that to be considered appropriately masculine he must suppress all "nonmasculine"
emotional states, he is overwhelmed by emotional states that are culturally defined
as nonmasculine.

Faced with such an intense conflict
between the emotional legacy of abuse and the emotionally constricting
dictates of their gender socialization, male victims must find some pathway to
resolution. One pathway entails the rigid adherence to masculine gender norms,
a resolution which requires the forceful suppression and repression of abuse-related
emotions (Lisak, 1995). Such a rigid conformity to gender norms may result in an
accentuated constriction of emotional experience that is particularly focused on
"vulnerable" emotions -- the helplessness, shame and powerlessness associated
with the abuse experience (Bolton, Morris, & MacEachern, 1989; Lisak, 1994a, 1995).
Thus, the male abuse victim who adopts this resolution to the conflict would
manifest an intolerance of his own distressful emotions.

Simultaneously, such a rigid gender
adaptation would likely lead to an accentuated reliance on anger, the emotion
which is most sanctioned by male gender norms (Mosher & Tompkins, 1988).
Indeed, these authors, among others, have argued that men who rigidly adhere
to gender norms for emotional expression are likely to convert a variety of
emotional states, such as fear and helplessness, into anger. Thus, gender
rigidity increases the likelihood that abuse-generated emotions will be
suppressed and converted into anger, a dynamic that is likely to increase
the propensity for aggressive action.

Such gender rigidity, with its resultant
constriction in emotional experience, is also likely to interfere with the individual's
capacity to constructively integrate his traumatic experiences. As described by
Horowitz (1986) and Roth and Cohen (1986), such an integration typically requires
periods of avoidance of traumatic information and affect, as well as periods of
approach. The gender-rigid, emotionally constricted individual is less likely to
be able to tolerate approaching the negative emotional states evoked by trauma,
and more likely to avoid them, either by using psychological defenses, or by
converting them to aggressive action.

This adaptation is also likely to
have a significant, negative impact on the individual's capacity to respond
empathically to others, which in turn increases the likelihood of aggressive
behavior (Miller & Eisenberg, 1988). This impact may by felt in several ways.
The need to deny and suppress "vulnerable" emotional states is likely to
render them highly threatening when they appear externally, in the form of
another person's distress, because of their power to evoke similar feelings
in the perceiver. In effect, the individual is threatened with emotional overarousal
-- an intensity of "vulnerable" emotions which conflict with his rigid adherence to
gender norms, and which he cannot regulate. Or, the individual may actually become
emotionally overaroused. In either case, he is likely to seek ways to terminate either
the threat or the actual experience of the aversive emotional state. He may do so
"internally" by using psychological defenses which disconnect him from his
emotional experience, or he may do so "externally" through aggressive action
aimed at the perceived source of his discomfort. This is consistent with the
finding that abused children sometimes respond aggressively to peers who
express distress (Klimes-Dougan & Kistner, 1990; Main & George, 1985).

. . . . The hypothesized relationships
linking abuse, gender rigidity, empathy deficits and perpetration are not
expected to apply equally to all perpetrators of interpersonal violence. To the
extent that it helps explain the abuse-perpetration link, it is unlikely to apply,
for example, to the subtype of pedophile who has been described as
passive and developmentally arrested (Finkelhor & Araji, 1986).

The goal of the present study was to
examine two relationships posited in Figure 1: that between
abuse (physical and sexual), gender rigidity and perpetration; and
that between abuse, emotional constriction and perpetration. The model
predicts that abused men who perpetrate will score higher than abused men
who do not perpetrate on measures of gender rigidity and emotional
constriction.

. . . . One way to understand these findings
is to conceptualize two developmental pathways diverging from a history of
childhood abuse. In one path, the male abuse victim may appear conflicted and
preoccupied by gender identity issues, but this preoccupation may indicate
a lack of conformity to gender norms necessitated by his coping with the legacy
of his abuse. In the other path, the male abuse victim strives to be stereotypically
masculine, and must therefore suppress the high magnitude emotional states that
are the legacy of his abuse. The suppression required to hold at bay the emotional
legacy of abuse may also suppress his capacity to empathize with others. Having
sealed himself off from his own pain, the perpetrator may also suppress his capacity
to feel the pain of others, and thereby diminish a crucial inhibition against interpersonal
violence. Simultaneously, his rigid gender conformity may accentuate his reliance on
anger as a culturally acceptable outlet for his emotions, again increasing his propensity
for aggressive interpersonal behavior.

[Please note: To see the study's findings, you will need the article, recently
published in the October 1996 Journal of Traumatic Stress. Unfortunately,
presenting the findings here is not a good idea--either practically, given their variety
and complexity, or legally, given copyright law which limits quotation to less than
10% of the total document.]